Case Number 12167

THE LOST WORLD

The Charge

"A body of land uplifted by volcanic eruption a hundred million years
ago, cut off from the march of time by the unscalable nature of its cliffs. A
land where monsters lived. George Edward Challenger's lost world."

Opening Statement

It's actually Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World; Professor
George Edward Challenger is just a character living in it.

When you think of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, chances are another famous
character comes to mind first (Irwin Allen named the heroine Jennifer Holmes as
an homage, if you need a hint). The Lost World, published in 1912, was
the first of five novels featuring Challenger, a character based on a real-life
professor encountered by Conan Doyle.

The Lost World has been found in five movie variations and a TV
series that undoubtedly made Sir Arthur Conan Doyle roll over in his grave. By
1960, the novel had sold 23,000,000 copies (a stat from the original press kit),
making it a good candidate for the big screen.

Irwin Allen had been in the movie business for a decade before producing
1960's The Lost World, but the reputation the epic gave him took him on a
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, got him Lost in Space, and sent
him on The Poseidon Adventure, to name a few. For a time in the 1960s and
1970s, his name before a movie or TV series title meant more than that of Conan
Doyle.

Fox presents 1960's The Lost World in a two-disc edition that
presents the 1926 silent version as a bonus feature.

Facts of the Case

The Lost World (1960) -- 96 minutes George Edward
Challenger (Claude Rains, The Invisible Man) is greeted by reporters as
he disembarks a plane in London. One of them, Ed Malone (David Hedison, Live
and Let Die), gets clubbed on the head with the prof's heavy cane and
tumbles into a puddle.

Malone is greeted by a poodle, and then by the poodle's person, Jennifer
Holmes (Jill St. John, Diamonds are Forever), who offers him a lift into
town. The two meet again at Challenger's presentation to the Zoological Society,
where the prof makes a startling claim about the plateau he discovered:
"There exists today many forms of creatures long believed to be
extinct." Dinosaurs, to be specific.

Professor Walter Summerlee (Richard Hadyn, Five Weeks in a Balloon)
is skeptical ("Were they big dinosaurs, professor?") but agrees to
join an expedition, so long as someone else funds it. The money comes from
Stuart Holmes, Jennifer's wealthy father and Malone's boss.

By the time the helicopter lifts off, the expedition includes Challenger and
Summerlee, Malone, Jennifer, her brother David (Ray Stricklyn, Young Jesse
James), adventurer Lord John Roxton (Michael Rennie, The Third Man),
pilot Gomez (Fernando Lamas, 100 Rifles), and guide Costa (Jay Novello,
The Pride and the Passion). Jennifer brings her poodle, Frosty, along as
well.

Within a day, something knocks the helicopter off the plateau, conveniently
(for the story) cutting off communication with the outside world. The explorers
also find a beautiful plateau woman (Vitina Marcus, Taras Bulba), who
appears to be wearing a swimdress (Perhaps the explorers will discover a lost
department store like Gimbel's or Marshall Field's on the plateau). She actually
starts to like the explorers, despite a first meeting in which they chase her
into the web of a giant spider.

Will they find those dinosaurs -- and make it back to London with
evidence?

The Lost World (1926) -- 75 minutes It's almost the same
story, but there's no Jennifer. Instead, there's Paula White (Bessie Love,
Ragtime), the daughter of a previous explorer of the plateau, who joins
the expedition in hopes of rescuing her father. Ed Malone (Lloyd Hughes) also
has a girl back home, Gladys (Alma Bennett), who urges him to go out seeking
adventure. Instead of Frosty the poodle, there's Jocko the monkey, and there's
an ape-man waiting for them instead of a beautiful woman.

Professor Challenger (Wallace Beery, Big Jack) is still as
cantankerous as ever, and he's still a rival of Professor Summerlee (Arthur
Hoyt, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock). Sir John Roxton (Lewis Stone, The
Hoodlum Saint) is an old friend of Malone's in this version.

The story wraps up in London, where a brontosaurus gets loose, creating
havoc that will be familiar to anyone who has seen King Kong.

The Evidence

Frankly, Irwin Allen's sci-fi debut is as cheesy as heck.

Although she's playing an adventuress who can shoot and fight with the best
of men, Jill St. John's main attribute as Jennifer Holmes is a good set of
pipes. That's right; she screams at everything. At least Jennifer's poodle
Fluffy is trying to scare the dinosaurs away when he barks.

The men's typical movie responses to noises and a giant footprint --
Summerlee's scoffing, Malone's "What the devil's that?," and Costa's
cowardly terror -- aren't much better. At one point, Malone and Roxton come to
blows over Jennifer, ignoring the fact that they're facing impending doom.

What's good here? The performances of Claude Rains and Richard Haydn as the
believer-doubter rivals Challenger and Summerlee aren't bad. Fernando Lamas
makes a clichéd storyline -- Gomez's friend was lost on the plateau three
years earlier -- work better than it should. The set design was excellent.

The elegance of the 1926 silent version of The Lost World comes
through immediately, as graceful shots of stop-motion dinosaurs introduce the
picture. It's a silent film, so you'll see broad performances that you
(hopefully) wouldn't see much of today. The storyline is oddly romantic, as
Malone and Pearl find themselves falling in love on the plateau, and Malone must
make a choice when he comes back to London. The rivalry between Challenger and
Summerlee takes on an entertaining slapstick quality here as Challenger designs
a catapult.

Oddly, the plateau looks more realistic in the 1926 version than in the 1960
version. The newer film is more obviously shot on soundstages, and the real
(small) lizards made up to look like giant dinosaurs are less menacing than the
stop-motion creations by Willis O'Brien (King Kong) used in the 1925
version. O'Brien's effects have a poetic quality that makes them interesting to
watch; there are a few extra dinosaur sequences thrown in for good measure.

The 1960 movie has a bright, colorful feel to it, combining a hint of
psychedelic dream imagery with, apparently, the production team's simple joy at
having color film to work with. The color is transferred well here. The 1926
version is beaten up somewhat, but tinting is used to hide some of the scratches
and spots. Sound quality is decent in both cases.

There's no commentary, but the extras include a few gems. My favorite part
was the "Pressbook Gallery," which shows the original marketing
elements -- including ads and radio copy -- for the 1960 movie. It's got lots of
fun facts (it's where I learned about the book's sales figures and the Holmes
homage), and lots of fun flummery (suggesting, for example, that seeing
man-eating veggies on screen might get your kid "to start wolfing his
spinach"). If you spring for The Lost World, you've got to check
this part out; the press kit's more fun than the movie.

The rest of the galleries are good and extensive, but they're the sort that
flash by on their own -- way too fast. Letting us navigate would have made the
galleries better.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

The 1926 silent is marred by scenes with a servant in blackface, complete
with inappropriate dialect.

Closing Statement

If you have low expectations -- killing a couple of hours and seeing how
Irwin Allen started out in sci-fi -- you'll probably enjoy 1960's The Lost
World. The 1926 The Lost World is one that genre fans will want to
explore, mainly for the special effects, so it makes a worthy special
feature.

The Verdict

I won't call this a must-see, but The Lost World makes a great
addition to your DVD cheese tray. Not guilty.